Hello, Pilot! Are You Flying This Plane?

May 29, 1985|By Bob Greene.

In Tuesday`s column I passed along to you the sad tale of how--trapped in an airplane jetting its way from Detroit to Los Angeles--I compulsively made approximately $200 worth of telephone calls on one of those new airborne pay phones.

I am destined to be charged for those calls when my credit card bill arrives next month. That`s how the airborne pay phones work--the calls are billed to any major credit card you slip into the slot on the console. There will be nothing for me to do when the bill arrives but to swallow hard, kick myself and pay it.

There is something else on my mind, though. At the end of Tuesday`s column, I said that were it not for something that happened in the air, my bill probably would have been closer to $300. I have been thinking about it ever since.

Midway through the flight to Los Angeles--after I had placed a goodly number of calls--a member of the cockpit crew emerged into the main cabin. There were three men in the crew--the captain, the first officer and the flight engineer.

The cockpit man inserted a credit card into the telephone console and took the phone back into the cockpit with him.

The phone remained in the cockpit for more than an hour.

Now . . . if you follow this column with any regularity at all, you know what`s about to be said.

There are those of us who are nervous fliers. We do not like to be in airplanes at all; when we are in the planes, we like to think that the cockpit crews are doing everything they can to get us to our destinations safely.

In the past I have complained about the practice of flight attendants serving meals to the cockpit crew during a flight. I have said that those of us who are having a jittery flight back in the seats do not like the idea of the people in charge of getting us to the next city having a nice, leisurely lunch or dinner when they should be flying the plane.

When I have written about this, I have invariably received abusive letters from pilots, telling me that I don`t know what I`m talking about. Modern planes virtually fly themselves; cockpit crew members need to remain well-nourished and keep their blood sugar levels high, etc., etc.

That argument doesn`t make it with those of us who are nervous in the air. We quite simply would feel better if everyone in the cockpit were watching the instruments and observing what`s going on rather than cutting into a piece of broiled chicken.

Pilots have written me to say that with three people in the cockpit, it`s perfectly all right if one or two of them eat during the flight; the one who isn`t eating can mind the store. It`s hard to buy that argument. These are the same pilots who scream every time the airlines say they want to reduce three- man cockpit crews to two-man cockpit crews; the same pilots who are happily munching away up there argue that two-man cockpit crews reduce the safety aboard an airplane.

And now . . . the airborne telephones.

I don`t want to belabor this too much--but I would prefer it if the cockpit crews on my flights were not making calls to their wives, girlfriends and stockbrokers while we are six miles in the air. I know that by saying this I will be flooded with letters from pilots, telling me how safe it is for them to make phone calls while in the cockpit.

On this particular flight, a flight attendant delivered two meals into the cockpit while the telephone was still up there. And then one of the cockpit crew came strolling back through the passenger cabin.

Let`s add it up. One guy presumably on the phone. Two guys eating lunch. One guy walking back among the passengers.

That`s four guys. And there were only three guys up there in the first place.

In a way, the pilots who were on the telephone did me a favor; by keeping the phone away from me, they prevented me from running my bill up to even more ridiculous levels.

But for the whole hour that the phone was up in the cockpit, I kept envisioning the pilots leaning back in their seats and having lovely conversations with people down on the ground. All while we were traveling at a speed of eight miles a minute.

I have a modest proposal.

The airborne telephones are in their initial stages of installation right now. Soon enough they are expected to be a normal part of air travel in the United States.

I propose that the cockpit crews--the people who are flying the plane--be banned from using the pay phones. The phones should be for the passengers only; if the pilots must communicate with the ground, they can do it via their radio equipment.

If the pilots want to call their friends and loved ones, there will be plenty of time to do it on the ground. Those of us back in the seats are entrusting our lives to the pilots; it would make us very happy if they could manage to stay off the phone while they are flying the plane.

Again, to all the pilots who are reading this and are putting together arguments about how safe it is to chat on the telephone while you`re on duty in the cockpit: